Scam Complete: The US Government Takes A Page From Diocletian’s Book...

Early in the 4th century, Emperor Diocletian issued an infamous decree to control spiraling wages and prices in the rapidly deteriorating Roman Empire.

As part of his edict, Diocletian commanded that any merchant or customer caught violating the new price structures would be put to death.

This is an important lesson from history, and a trend that has been repeated numerous times. When nations are in terminal economic decline, governments will stop at nothing to keep the party going just a little bit longer.

I thought of Diocletian’s desperation a few days ago when I read about the recent sanctions imposed on US rating agency Egan-Jones. It’s a similar story–

For years, major rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch) have championed the outright fraud of our financial system by pinning pristine credit ratings on insolvent governments and their heavily inflated currencies.

In doing so, the rating agencies are effectively claiming that the greatest debtor that has ever existed in the history of the world is nearly ‘risk-free’.

Clearly this is a ridiculous assertion. With a debt level over 100% of GDP, the US is so broke that the government must borrow money just to pay interest on the money it’s already borrowed. They’ve lost over a trillion dollars a year since 2008, yet they still spend money on things like drones and body scanners. It’s crazy.

As with any good scam, the government must maintain public confidence. The moment someone says ‘the Emperor has no clothes,’ that shallow, fragile confidence will come crashing down and expose the scam. Dissent must be vigorously and swiftly pursued.

So when S&P finally downgraded the US one notch in August 2011, the SEC and Justice Department announced that S&P was under investigation, just two weeks later.

Egan-Jones, a smaller rating agency, has been even more aggressive, downgrading the US credit rating three times in 18 months. And while the federal government may not have imposed Diocletian’s death penalty, they are just as willing to squash dissent.

In a country that churns out thousands of pages of new regulations each week, it’s easy to find a reason to go after someone. As you read this letter, in fact, you are probably in violation of at least a dozen regulatory offenses.

In the case of Egan-Jones, the SEC brought administrative action against the agency within two weeks of their second downgrade. And a few days ago, the case was settled.

I’m sure you have already guessed the ending: Egan-Jones is banned from for the next 18 months from rating US government debt. They’ve effectively been silenced from telling the truth.

The lesson here is obvious. Just as in Roman times, bankrupt nations today will stop at nothing to keep up the scam just a little bit longer.

Given that all this is happening at a time when Congress is voting to suspend the debt ceiling entirely, these actions are the clearest sign yet of just how desperate the government has become.

Banned? Death? They just fine the economists in Argentina for telling the truth about inflation.

Consumer prices rose 9.7% in May from a year ago, according to the national statistics agency, Indec. But virtually all economists say annual inflation surpasses 20%—one of the world's highest rates—angering government officials who dismiss inflation as a problem.

**Krugmanrand: A gold colored powder-coated round, composed of 3% tungsten and 97% compressed sawdust, bearing the slogan "In Diocletian We Trust" and "To Infinity & Beyond!" on one side, alongside "CTRL+P," and having the other side enscribed with "What, Me Worry?" alongside an engraved likeness of one Ben S. Bernanke (Shakey McShakester).

I went to the mall for lunch today, it was business as usual. Those people were blissfully unaware of the economic catastrophe facing them. It had the feeling of what it might have felt like right before the Little Boy atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Everything felt quasi-normal, next all hell breaks loose, and those that survived envied the dead.

@ NPE - I don't think that "economic catastrophe" is sufficiently accurate. I was thinking the other day about inflation. There's a scene in Ghostbusters when "Ray" takes out THREE mortgages on his house in order to fund the new enterprize. "Egon" reports that, the interest alone (at 17%) will amount to $95K over three years. $95K!!!! THAT'S CHICKEN FEED!!!! Nowadays a trip to the grocery store costs $100 and fills two bags. The crisis will not, in my opinion, come in the form of collapse; it will be a slow burn, followed by a global conflict manufactured as way to both distract and kill off those who would eventually turn on their overlords.

That's what I was telling my friend at the mall. Exactly how are these people going to cope if the grid goes down, or the grocery stores are no longer stocked with food items, or fuel deliveries are cut off.

It was just somewhat strange that these folks haven't spent even one second thinking about what will happen in a collapse. I guess its easier to continue to delude yourself than allow reality to penetrate your fantasies that things will continue as always.

You're simply forgetting the mangnifying power of the exponential function. Comparing time frames of collapse in the Roman empire to the time frames of collapse to the American empire is comparing chalk and cheese. The warning signs are flashing neon red all over the ship. I would have once thought along similar lines to yourself but I am now reasonably convinced that the collapse will happen so instanteneously as to take our collective fucking breaths away. When individuals, companies, councils, municipalities, states and entire soverigns are levered multiple and many multiples of one, all concurrently, all relying at the same time on ultra low rates, I mean to say, all it takes is one lousy butterfly to flap its wings.

I tend to agree. With massive wage cuts and layoffs happening every day, it's only a matter of time before we have people fighting over $10/hr jobs just to keep their home. When they can't, there's gonna be a LOT of really, really unhappy campers out there. The other black swan could be the US gov's forced nationalization of 401Ks. That alone could start a major civil war. Why? Because as soon as they did that, millions of people would be broke overnight. No last chance, no safety net, no hope until they reached 70 or whatever assinine age the fuckers in Congress said was legal.

A lunchtime "out & about" and a visit to a local sports store chain, had almost empty shelves for ammo. Even common ammo like 9 mm. Lots of Bolt-Action guns though.

As many gun safety class teachers advocate: Make sure YOU (a) oppose these Demo-Fascist ploticians, and (b) provide $$ support to local initiatives to fund legal fights in state legislatures. The Demo-Fascists must be warned that they WILL be voted out.

And let's keep that "laser focus" on the real gun-debate: This is a pre-emptive disarming of the populace (that might/will revolt) for what's to come, and not a safety issue. The Neo-Feudal Lords want the people to have 'pitchforks' (bolt-action or low-capacity magazine guns) against their endless might.

And what a shame that a couple of the items on her X-Mass List were lost years ago, during the numerous trans-national and international moves we've made in the past 15 years. Bummer. Thieving, minimum-wage movers! That ever happen to you?

They have an inside source who says the REAL target is ammo. Soon you will see bills, EO's and other regulation put through that will jack the taxes up on every step of the supply chain (just as they have done with coal fired power plants) to drive the manufacturers out of business.

Those who denounce the coin of the realm are enemies of the state. So if you know what's good for you then turn your head, avert your eyes and keep walking or you too will be considered persona non grata.

There will come a point when dissent of any sort will not be tolerated.

Step 2 : Add this to it :HOW TO TAKE OVER SOMEONE'S PROPERTY AND GET AWAY WITH IT

Adverse possession is a principle of real estate law that gives anyone who possesses the land of another for an extended period of time in an 'actual, open, hostile and continuous' manner the right to claim legal title to that land.

The exact elements of an adverse possession claim may be different in each state. In Florida, the law prescribes continuous possession of at least seven years. In New Jersey, a squatter must be in possession of the property for 30 years, while in New York it's 10 years.

In some states, the trespasser must have paid taxes on the property during this time period. Other states don’t require payment of property taxes, but will apply a shorter time requirement for occupying the land if the trespasser has paid taxes.

That's in reference to establishing color of title, and doesn't require paying taxes unless the State statute specifically calls for it. You could just record a deed or a plat at the Register of Deeds claiming the property is your own, 30-50 bucks on average for either one. It would get thrown out in an instant if challenged, but if it's not challenged then you've established color of title. This then shrinks the statutory period for claiming adverse possession, sometimes drastically (e.g. 20 years without versus 7 years with).

"When nations are in terminal economic decline, governments will stop at nothing to keep the party going just a little bit longer."

Whether because of complacency, fear, denial or just a lack of imagination, most of us simply fail to grasp how much worse it can and will become nor what draconian steps the government will take to remain in power.

Trust me on this one, there will be no failure of imagination on the government's part.

In the sense that "shit has gotten very real and it can no longer be denied", yes. In the sense of "what is happening and why", not so much. It is this latter sense which is involved in forming an understanding which might allow one to not repeat past mistakes when the chaos ends.

After each revolution, we find that the population is only too happy to be done with the awful business --- even if they have no reason to believe they will not be worse off than before. In situations which otherwise may have produced a revolution, an insufficient portion of the population could be bothered to get off their asses, which avoided the revolution and produced essentially the same result - no change.

1. If you make a withdrawal from your "401k Fiat Account" -- whose Fiat-drive is "taking you nowhere", but off the cliff perhaps (as seen on TV) -- you have to declare it as "Income" and will be taxed on it.

2. If you take out as much as 50% of your (employee) contribution of your 401k as a LOAN -- you are 'loaning' yourself! -- then it is tax-free. And you have to repay it of some long period, at an interest rate that you like. This way, you are assured of a higher return than from "Wand Strasse" (German).

If you were then, say, to 'invest' your 401k Fiat account into some real-wealth assets, then you've mitigated risk from TPTB. Investments like PM's, Productive Land. Where the latter pays real-wealth "dividends", not fiat dividends, that you either 'spend' (consume) or exchange-in-kind (barter, gift).

The only advice so far in this blog-chain, that you can actually CAPITALIZE on. You're welcome, bitchez!

I borrow against mine for up to six years at 2 pts above prime. The only problem with this is that I don't like putting more money into the system that will be worthless later, so it's imperative to use the loans wisely.

One of the earliest fears about tax-favored savings accounts like IRAs and 401(k) plans was that when this pool of savings grew large enough Congress would not be able to resist tapping it to help solve the nation’s debt problems. We’re about to find out if those fears—persistent for decades—have been justified.

Dont forget the fact these beautiful totally not Wall-Street owned and of course completely unbiased rating agencies that slapped AAA+ investment grades on wonderful companies like Lehmans, Bear Stearns, Fanny n Freddy, MFGlobal, etc. etc. etc. had no qualms slamming European sovereigns with trash ratings right before they were to issue another bond sale.

When is that UK downgrade coming or is the City still too important to protect?

And then silencing the only truly independent agency, sickening doesn´t even come close to cutting it.

Obliviously Mr. Smoke, you didn't notice that the score is kept in constantly debasing currency units. So the SPX is almost back to where it was six years ago, right before it fell to 666. Six years of ZERO NOMINAL GAINS, and a LOSS of 11% in CPI-adjusted terms.

Something tells me you didn't buy gold in 2007, when it was $1000 an ounce cheaper.

Yeah, and it only took about $3 trillion in back door bailouts and artificial levitation by the exchange stabilization fund to get us there. I hope you're heavily invested in equities, so we all get a laugh when they go KABOOM!

Obama is nothing compared to Caligula. When Caligula came to power the treasury and the privy purse were full of gold. After four year of frivolous spending and an empty treasury Caligual was murdered by his own Preatorian Guard. Caligula started running out of coin early in his reign and started murdering Roman Senators and the heads of wealthy family's, all to acquire their accumulated wealth. Those that were murdered were required to state in their wills that their wealth should be turned over to Caligual and the state before they were killed off. All of this was done to keep the party going.

absolutism, is the last step to social collapse; you can't ossify a society further than that.

Constantine invented a formula to stop the rot then : he moved the capital away from old Rome; fresh air, new beginnings and then gave the empire a new spiritual code. Awesome tactics that delayed ROme's fall by another century; and made Constantinople its continuator.

What will DC do? Make Anchorage new DC?

Invent a new religion called american socialism gone evangenical, to reconcile tea party to coffee drinkers and teamster unions?

The disintegration continued, and there seemed no power great enough to stop it. The treasury was empty, agriculture prostrate, industry demoralized, trade stagnant, and the only commercial activity was a maddened, consuming, parasitic speculation. In A.D. 301 Diocletian issued his famous price fix- ing decree as the last measure of a desperate sovereign.

Saw the County Sheriffs writing speeding tix on I-10 in Inland Emprie on Tuesday... Saw County Sheriffs writing near the San Onofre Checkpoint on Thursday... Soon, meter maids will be using souped up scooters to write on I-5. hahahha.

The parallels between Rome and the U.S. include the tragic transition from Rome's republican form of government to empire and tyranny.

The Roman Republic fell when more and more senators were bribed and compromised and, eventually, as in the case of Augustus, were replaced with senators who would provide favorable support.

This general erosion of honest senators was a key factor in the fall.Augustus made the biggest use of this factor by increasing the number of senators to cut their individual power, and to rid himself of those senators that would get in his way.

At the peak of Rome’s power, the republic already had been destroyed and Rome was to be in steady decline from then on.

America, likewise, started out as a republic, but eventually her public officials, too, became compromised, specifically in 1913 to the point that they turned her constitution over to private men. That’s exactly what happened to the Roman republic; it eventually turned its power over to generals. The greatest example was when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to actually fight other Romans in a civil war. But by then the republic was dead.

Edward Gibbon identifies part of this transition and its parallel to America today as the Empire of Rome began its decline, at the beginning of empire:

“It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should discover in the public felicity the latent cause of decay and corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of the empire.The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated….” – Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume I

article is propaganda. Emperor Diocletian... in fact brought back the court system , taken from a military dictatorship of generals, introduced a fair tax system and did leave in his death the guide line for Constantine to follow.

He certainly did his best in what was a rather dismal situation all around. You have to have some sympathy at least for the first Emperor to voluntarily give up power in order to tend his gardens in retirement.

The Roman farmers, unable to compete with Egyptian wheat tribute shipments, sold themselves into slavery for three meals a day. The Emporer was so pissed he passed a law making it illegal for a citizen to sell himself this way. Party on for a few more days. Then the Visgoths and Huns just walked into a dilapidated Rome w goats rummaging around.

"Britain cannot be relied on to force Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc (RBS.L) to give Canadian authorities documents on alleged interest rate rigging, because the British government is RBS's majority shareholder, Canada's Competition Bureau argued this month."

"I guess its easier to continue to delude yourself than allow reality to penetrate your fantasies that things will continue as always."

I lost my cherry to those fantasies in '97. I thought then I was late coming to the party, the 99th monkey. The Imminence of Collapse -- Greenspan had warned of irrational exuberance three years earlier -- was both enthralling and horrifying. On the (then-relevant) Kitco gold discussion board, I first heard the phrase "watching a train wreck in slow motion," we talked with Another (the original) for a season, in the mix of news and trading and economics and politics and shit. We were waiting for gold to move above $300. That would be the indicator that the distortion could no longer be contained. Five years.... Any day now. A guy called Farfel actually went insane online when Catastrophe failed to arrive for the twentieth time.

Any day now the whole shebang was coming down -- through LTCM, the Euro, Monicagete, Y2k, Dot.com, 9/11. The Imminence -- it dragged on forever. When gold finally did close for good above $300, it was orgiastic. Yes! Let's get this over with already! That was some dozen years ago.

"I guess its easier to continue to delude yourself than allow reality to penetrate your fantasies that things will continue as always."

I submit that perhaps it is *not* so easy to perpetuate self-delusion, that it takes a mighty effort to construct and maintain a mental and social circumstance dismissive of all we consider obvious. If so, the toll it takes I imagine looks a lot like what we have now: a society of people eluded of their prime, gutted, ruled by fear.

Or not. I don't know. I do wonder though that in our earnest to spot the destruction from a distance, eyes cast to the horizon, we've neglected something nearer, and that perhaps the destruction we dread, one we think we'd recognize, still lays ahead by our time schedule, and that along the way some other real damage has already been incurred.

I think there are still lots of things that the gov't can do to keep the party going. Merchants who raise prices can be declared "economic terrorists" and their stock siezed and redistributed. Anyone complaining about taxes may face the same charge.

Everything in safe-deposit boxes can be siezed until with the owners can prove they own it to the satisfaction of the tax authorities.

The modern U.S. government is owned by the AshkeNAZI, descended from Genghis Khan, the hateful tribe who founded Zionism, and wage endless war abroad from their gunned up , profiteering and politically 'neutral' whore nation Switzerland...long after jews of the Tora and Christians made the U.S.A., the world's only honorable Constitution, for the people, by the people, of the people.

The U.S. government has been a plaything of the hateful warmongering fiat moneychanger whores AshkeNAZI since 1913. They are freaks who shout anti-semite, although they are not true jews of the Tora or the middle east. They are the AshkeNAZI, a war tribe of Russian Jews, gang bangers, central banksters who pollute the world.

The CIA and its MK Ultra program which drugs and programs mass killers is a continuation of the AshkeNAZI attempt to take over Germany and Europe. After WWII, the CIA brought those AshekeNAZI to the USA, although the dimwit political pets and psycho killers were allowed to escape to South America.

The AshkeNAZI Russian mob own CONgress, and Israel. They hate honest hardworking jews, and hate Christians even more so.

"Softly! Softly! I want none but the judges to hear me. The Predators have already gotten me into a fine mess, as they have many other gentleman. I have no desire to furnish further grist for their mills." (Oration in Defense of Flaccus)

Cicero was serving as defense counsel at the trial of Flaccus, a Roman official who interfered with Predatorish gold shipments to their international headquarters (then, as now) in Jerusalem. Cicero himself certainly was not a nobody, and for one of this stature to have to "speak softly" shows that he was in the presence of a dangerously powerful sphere of influence.

and on another occasion Cicero wrote:

"The Predators belong to a dark and repulsive force. One knows how numerous this clique is, how they stick together and what power they exercise through their unions. They are a nation of rascals and deceivers."

SENECA (Lucius Annaeus Seneca). First century Roman philosopher.

"The customs of that most criminal nation have gained such strength that they have now been received in all lands. The conquered have given laws to the conquerors." (De Superstitione)

DIO CASSIUS. Second century Roman historian. Describing the savage Predatorish uprising against the Roman empire that has been acknowledged as the turning point downward in the course of that great state-form:

"The Predators were destroying both Greeks and Romans. They ate the flesh of their victims, made belts for themselves out of their entrails, and daubed themselves with their blood... In all, 220,000 men perished in Cyrene and 240,000 in Cyprus, and for this reason no Predator may set foot in Cyprus today." (Roman History)

DIODORUS SICULUS. First century Greek historian.Observed that Predators treated other people as enemies and inferiors.

"Usury" is the practice of lending money at excessive interest rates. This has for centuries caused great misery and poverty for Gentiles. It has brought strong condemnation of the Predators

WASHINGTON, GEORGE, in Maxims of George Washington by A. A. Appleton & Co.

"They (the Predators) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."

This prophecy, by Benjamin Franklin, was made in a "CHIT CHAT AROUND THE TABLE DURING INTERMISSION," at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. This statement was recorded in the dairy of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a delegate from South Carolina.

"I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. The menace, gentlemen, is the Predators. In whatever country Predators have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within the state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal. For over 1,700 years, the Predators have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race. If you do not exclude them from these United States, in their Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives our substance and jeopardized our liberty. If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude Predators for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Predators, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will nor how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American's, and will not even thou they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Predators are Asiatics, are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention.